When longtime eastsider Chris Staab voted for a tax increase for public transit in 2016, he thought he was voting in favor of the Blue Line bus project, too.

Now Staab, who also serves as president of the Near East Side Community Organization, said he is frustrated that Indiana lawmakers could kill the project by passing a bill that’s under consideration in the House. 

Whether it’s tenant protections or the size of the City-County Council, Indianapolis for years has been forced to contend with state lawmakers willing to shape — or even overrule — policy decisions made by local officials. This year, though, came a bill that not only would overrule local policy; it would directly undo the results of a referendum that Marion County voters like Staab overwhelmingly approved with 59% of the vote.

“That some person being a legislator can write legislation to do away with what the people had voted for, that really irks me,” Staab said. “I liked that it came to the people, instead of someone pushing a pencil behind a desk.”

The lawmaker behind that legislation, State Sen. Aaron Freeman, has insisted that residents were unaware the bus rapid transit project would require IndyGo to set aside dedicated lanes for the buses.

That’s why he filed Senate Bill 52 this year. As written, it would place a moratorium on the construction of dedicated lanes for bus rapid transit for the Blue Line, and it calls for a study on the impact of dedicated lanes.

“No one in ‘16 went to the ballot and said this is about dedicated lanes. Nobody. It was about getting more buses and getting people to and from work in a quicker way. That’s what the referendum was about,” Freeman, R-Indianapolis, told Mirror Indy. “There was no conversation about dedicated lanes.”

It is true that the ballot language did not specifically reference dedicated lanes. The language asked for a tax hike to pay for “three new rapid transit lines.”

But records show there was extensive discussion of dedicated lanes. 

Marion County’s transit plans have included dedicated lanes for several years, including in the months leading up to the 2016 referendum. Several media reports from 2016 confirm that inclusion of dedicated lanes was being publicized at the time.

The Central Indiana Transit Plan — published in June 2016 after years of public meetings — also included the use of dedicated lanes as part of bus rapid transit.

And to gain approval from the City-County Council to place the referendum on the November 2016 ballot, transit officials shared their bus rapid transit plans at the council’s Municipal Corporations Committee meeting in April 2016.

“The point of bus rapid transit is to mimic the service of light rail at a fraction of the cost,” said Sean Northup, assistant executive director of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization, during the 2016 meeting. “It runs on dedicated lanes where traffic congestion warrants it.”

One person who served on that committee?

Then-City-County Councilor Aaron Freeman.

Former IndyGo CEO disputes Sen. Freeman’s characterization

The Blue Line, which would run about 24 miles from Cumberland to the Indianapolis International Airport, is the third of three planned bus rapid transit routes.

Its origin dates back to 2014 when state lawmakers paved the way for Central Indiana counties to hold a referendum on a tax hike to pay for public transit.

Two years later, Marion County voters were asked whether Marion County should impose a tax on income capped at .25% “to pay for improving or establishing public transportation service in the county” through what we now call the Red Line, Purple Line and Blue Line.

That same Municipal Corporations Committee meeting in 2016 also included discussion about the Red Line, the first and most complete conception of what bus rapid transit would look like in Marion County. 

A key component: Several miles of lanes dedicated to Red Line buses.

During lawmaker discussions on SB 52 this year, however, Freeman has referenced testimony from Mike Terry, who served as IndyGo’s CEO from 2008 to 2019. Freeman claimed Terry’s testimony shows dedicated lanes were not being considered for bus rapid transit.

Freeman also claimed Terry told the City-County Council that dedicated lanes were only needed when congestion warranted them, and that Terry referenced a lack of congestion along Virginia Avenue and Shelby Street.

Terry said the comment noted by Freeman was likely in the context of the Red Line, which uses shared lanes on its southside portion. He disputes the characterization that dedicated lanes weren’t being considered.

“If he’s saying that I had said, ‘Dedicated lanes wouldn’t be part of this,’ I would say that’s not correct,” Terry told Mirror Indy. “I don’t think I would have ever said there’s no dedicated lanes in this process. And at that time, we knew dedicated lanes were part of the plan.”

Sen. Freeman suggests state pay for Washington Street

Whether or not voters approved of dedicated lanes when they voted in 2016 is also beside the point, Freeman said. The main issue, he said, is that IndyGo included dedicated lanes in its plans in order to secure additional federal funding for infrastructure improvements. 

“The city of Indianapolis sees this as a way to pay for infrastructure that they could not pay for otherwise. So my position is OK, there is another way to pay for it. It’s called the state of Indiana,” Freeman said.

Freeman also cited a 2013 study by the infrastructure consulting firm HNTB that said dedicated lanes were “not recommended” for Washington Street because they would cause congestion without generating enough ridership. 

Asked about the 2013 study, IndyGo spokesperson Carrie Black said it “was based upon 2013 traffic volumes and 2013 community plans and conversations,” which still included consideration of light rail as part of the region’s public transit system. State lawmakers banned public spending on light rail in 2014 as part of the same legislation that authorized the 2016 referendum. 

Since then, Black said the agency has conducted additional studies and engaged with residents and businesses along Washington Street.

“There is now a greater recognition of dedicated lane (bus rapid transit) as an amenity that can not only improve transit service safety, schedule reliability and system integration, but also help to reshape and revitalize a community,” Black said.

Black said that one reason the agency pursued dedicated lanes for the Blue Line was to create an attractive grant application in order to secure federal funding to pay for additional infrastructure improvements.

Terry said it’s not uncommon for transportation agencies to consider what design factors will make an application more competitive, and the use of dedicated lanes is just one in a variety of factors to help a project get ahead in the grant process. 

It’s a competitive space. Northup, in his 2016 presentation to city-county councilors, described the competition for a U.S. Department of Transportation grant that had been awarded to Indianapolis. Applicants from 49 states asked for a total of $9 billion in funding, when only $600 million was available. Indianapolis’ was one of 72 projects chosen, out of 797 applications.

Aside from making the grant application more attractive, Black said the dedicated lanes would improve safety along Washington Street. Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization identified a portion of Washington Street as a high-risk area for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Reducing the number of lanes would slow traffic on a road that has seen a stark decrease in traffic volume over the last 50 years.

SB 52 has been referred to the House Roads and Transportation Committee, which could decide as early as this week whether to advance the bill to the full House. 

If the bill becomes law, Black said, the delay to the Blue Line project would increase construction costs, allow infrastructure to continue to deteriorate and jeopardize federal funding. 

IndyGo would have to reapply for funding for a more expensive project under a funding category for a more competitive grant that has stricter requirements, she said.

“We believe such a delay introduces a significant and unnecessary risk to us receiving the grant at all,” Black said. “If this bill passes, more than $230 million of infrastructure investment is at risk for the Blue Line corridor.”

Mirror Indy reporter Emily Hopkins uses data to write stories about people. Contact them at 317-790-5268 or emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis.